Brian Lee: Brawling sailors in a battle royal by the canal

Our long-gone friend Mr Emrys Jones, writing about the old Sea Lock Inn in a series of articles in a local paper back in 1927, had this to say: “If you turn to your right at the Clarence Road tramcar terminus, there stands facing you, resplendent in its new coat of paint, the Sea Lock Inn.

Our long-gone friend Mr Emrys Jones, writing about the old Sea Lock Inn in a series of articles in a local paper back in 1927, had this to say: “If you turn to your right at the Clarence Road tramcar terminus, there stands facing you, resplendent in its new coat of paint, the Sea Lock Inn.

“But if you are looking for the old Sea Lock Inn – it is an inn no longer – you must go a little further down the street that lies quite close to the canal.

“The bottom house there, now the home of the lock-keeper, is the original Sea Lock Inn, and from it you may gain some idea of how things were in the days when ‘windjammers’ carried the Red Ensign to remote corners of the Earth.

“Then this little quarter was one of the most important areas in this great commercial city, then but a struggling township.

“The squat and sturdy brigs came past the Sea Lock Inn with cargoes of iron ore from Whitehaven, in Cumberland, and when the day’s work was done their crews adjourned to the Sea Lock to rid themselves of some of their hard-earned wages in washing the salt from their throats.

“They drank deeply; they joked; they gambled and grumbled when they lost. They quarrelled and fought.

“‘It was certainly a tough quarter in those days,’ said a veteran who remembered. ‘And the sailors often quarrelled over their glasses, and with them, quarrels usually led to blows.’

“But they did not settle their differences outside the old Sea Lock because there was a favourite spot where these encounters always took place. It was higher up, near the old ballast heap, and there they wore out their wrath.

“And they knew how to fight! These brawny sailormen could give and take blows that would almost fell an ox!

“They were egged on by their shipmates and if the contest took place between two men of different ships, the struggle resolved itself into an affair of honour for the ship to which the combatants each belonged.

“The night would ring with the hoarse cries of seamen, and the thud-thud of terrific blows directed, if not with scientific skill, with tremendous effect if they achieved their objective!

“Then the victor, surrounded by his cheering shipmates, would be carried in triumph to the old Sea Lock Inn to celebrate the victory, and into the small hours they would recount every detail of the fight, and, with many a generous draught, toast every telling blow.

“Hard by there was the barracks of the old volunteers, for whom the Sea Lock was extraordinarily convenient, and from here it was that they took their final drink before setting out on the march to their camp.

“In their gilded helmets and their red coats and buttons glittering in the sun, they were a brave sight to those less fortunate mortals who had to be content with the daily round and common task of the canal side.

“A noted old lady lived just here at one time. They called her Granny Roberts and she lived in a pokey cottage just across the canal.

“Everybody knew her – especially the children. She had a tiny garden which attracted the younger generation strongly and no wonder! For in her garden grew a wine tree that every year bore a crop of delicious grapes, and it was as much as Granny Roberts could do to keep her eyes on the little thieves! It must have been a great temptation...

“But the days of Granny Roberts; the riotous days of the sailormen; the days of the volunteers who shipped their mines aboard the little General Lee all have gone. Romance has taken to its wings and the modern Sea Lock Hotel revels in the glory of its forbear down the road.”

You can send your memories/pictures of old Cardiff to Brian Lee by writing to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remembered, South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff CF10 1XR.

WalesOnline is part of Media Wales, publisher of the Western Mail, South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday and the seven Celtic weekly titles, offering you unique access to our audience across Wales online and in print.